


Plague of Ghosts

by sidewinder



Category: Brimstone
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 08:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidewinder/pseuds/sidewinder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end...or the beginning? Ezekiel and the devil have choices to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plague of Ghosts

The last tattoo was gone.

Ezekiel Stone leaned against the wall, his breath still coming in labored gasps from the just-finished fight. He kept staring at the skin of his right forearm, trying to come to terms with what he saw:

Nothing.

His arm was bare, as bare as the rest of his body. One hundred and thirteen names burned away, no trace left behind...not physically, at least. The mournful last cry of his final quarry still seemed to echo all around him, in the damp, cool air of the warehouse building where Zeke had found him.

Found him, fought him, shot out his eyes. And it had been...easy. Too easy, almost, leaving Zeke numb with disbelief that it could all be over. He had chased and defeated thousand year-old warriors, ancient pagan priestesses, insane serial killers...vile rapists. This last one had been nothing special, not in that company. Just a street punk who'd gone to Hell for murdering members of a rival gang before getting killed himself. The kid had only escaped Zeke's attention for so long through keeping a lower profile than most of his companions. But he'd found them all, eventually. Some of them had even come searching for _him_ , _wanting_ to go back to Hell. They had known that they didn't belong here on Earth, not any longer.

Ezekiel understood that feeling. It was one he'd wrestled with often enough, these past few years.

He had barely hesitated before pulling the trigger this time, not like he used to. He was too tired; his prey's pleas for mercy had barely registered on his ears. His job was to send them all home, not to worry about what horrors awaited them back in Hell or whether they deserved such a fate or not. All he'd kept thinking was that this was the last one, the last time he'd have to look someone in the eyes... only to destroy them.

It was over.

"Well, Ezekiel. I suppose congratulations are in order."

Zeke looked up. The devil sat on the edge of a wooden crate near the opposite wall. His smile seemed rather muted compared to his normal gleeful smirk. "I always knew you could do it--even if you needed the occasional kick in the ass for motivation."

"That was the last one," Zeke half-stated, half- asked, needing confirmation before he could believe it was true.

"The very last. No more wayward demons running loose upon the fair Earth...none, except for you, of course."

For a moment Zeke wondered if the devil would honor his promise or whether he'd just spent the last three years doing Satan's dirty work for nothing. The devil slipped off the edge of the crate and walked toward him, hands in the pockets of his well-tailored suit. "I'll keep my word, Ezekiel. I always intended to." He nodded toward the exit. Zeke noticed the hazy glow coming from outside...was it just the morning light of approaching dawn? It seemed somehow too bright, too vibrant to his eyes. "When you leave here...you will leave as a mortal man," the devil explained, and after a brief pause added, "Perhaps we'll see each other again, thirty or forty years down the road. Though I'm sure that's one fate you'll try your best to avoid."

Ezekiel turned back to look at the devil, seeing through his thin smile to the pain he was trying hard to mask. "Maybe," Zeke answered. His thoughts ran through everything that had happened during these past three years...things between himself and the ruler of Hell which he never would have imagined possible.

He thought of all the times the devil had infuriated him with cryptic clues and threats that he should take his job more seriously, taunted him about his wife, his past, his fate should he fail in his mission. He also thought of nights spent lost in the pleasure of the Lucifer's touch, his kisses, the inhuman passion he'd fought against at first, but soon enough come to revel in. To need.

Ezekiel reached up, wanting to touch the fallen angel's face one last time. The flesh was no more real than his own, but to his perceptions it felt _very_ real, and warm, and he wanted to remember that feeling. "It wasn't all bad."

"No, it wasn't," Lucifer answered, so much more expressed in his clear eyes and his smile than in his words. It was always that way between them. Ezekiel had learned with time and experience how to read every facial tick, every variation of a smile or a frown on his lover's face.

How strange his life--his death--had become, Zeke thought as he stood there, caught between the urge to run to freedom and the desire to stay, just a little while...maybe even longer. Maybe forever. Three years ago he wouldn't have looked back once from the light awaiting him. He would have walked through that door and been glad to never lay eyes on the devil again.

But now, looking into his eyes and thinking back on the past, Zeke knew what he really wanted: a reason not to go.

"If you can say one thing to me...I won't do it," Zeke said softly.

"You what?"

"I won't do it. I'll stay with you."

Shock flashed across the devil's expressive face, for just a moment. He quickly regained his composure and asked, his tone of voice cool, "And what would that be?"

"Tell me that you love me."

Lucifer's eyes widened and then he stepped back, laughing hard. "Very funny, Ezekiel. You really think you could mean that much to me?"

"You don't want to admit it, not even to yourself. But I know how you feel. At least I think I do." He remembered how their last few encounters had been more desperate, more passionate than ever before. Lucifer had lingered with him long into the night instead of disappearing as soon as passions had been satisfied. In silence they had held each other for hours, the devil tracing over the lines of the last few tattoos on Zeke's body, over and over, never saying a word as he did so. He hadn't needed to, then. Ezekiel had seen the fear of loss in those gray eyes, growing stronger as each mark had burned away.

The last time had been five nights before. Lying on the musty bed in a cheap motel room, Zeke had met the devil's gaze and said for the first time, "I love you."

"Don't. Don't say that, Ezekiel."

"Even if it's true?"

"Especially if it is. There is no place for love here. Not now, not for us," the devil had told him. Zeke had let it go then, but he wasn't going to let it go now without a fight.

Lucifer's laughter died away quickly under Ezekiel's serious gaze. "I..." he started, then struggled for several long moments in silence before confessing, "I don't want to lose you."

Zeke shook his head. "That's not enough. You know my soul. I want to know yours. I have to know what I mean to you or else I'm gone."

The devil's anger flared and he snapped, "Fine, then go. Get out of here before you try my patience and I cancel our deal after all."

Ezekiel shrugged, turned and started walking. Why was he fighting for this anyway? Maybe none of what he felt was real, maybe it was all the result of the devil's spell over him. When he stepped outside, he would be free from it all, free to reclaim his life...

Whatever he might be able to reclaim of it, being a man who had been legally dead for eighteen years. A man who had allowed the memories of his wife's gentle love to be burned away by the devil's heated touch.

A man who had seen too much of this world already, quite honestly, and wasn't sure he really wanted to see any more of it. He'd seen the bodies of too many victims, too many innocents killed at the hands of the escaped damned souls. The final screams of so many still echoed through his head, his dreams. There was so much darkness and pain weighing down his soul. Somehow the devil had become the only one who could lift that darkness from him, at least for a while. But maybe it would be different, once he was really "alive" again. He could start over. He could go to Rosalyn and try to reclaim at least something of what they had once shared.

He was almost there. Another few steps and the body he wore as a pretend living man would become real again.

"Ezekiel..."

He stopped and turned around. The devil stood just a few feet behind him. Zeke could sense the tension within his body as Lucifer struggled, still, to hold back his emotions. But it was a battle he was clearly beginning to lose. "I need you," he said, a tremble beneath the words. He was close to admitting it, but close wasn't what Zeke needed to hear.

"That's not good enough." Ezekiel started to turn back and take another step toward the outside.

"Wait--!" Lucifer grabbed Ezekiel's shoulders, spinning him so they were face to face. His touch was hard and desperate, fingers digging-- burning--into the detective's flesh. Zeke waited, watched, saw the devil's pride crumble away under his fear. "All right. I love you. Are you satisfied, dammit?"

The bitter confession brought a small grin to Zeke's face. "That didn't sound very sincere."

The devil scowled at him. "I'm trying. Don't get picky." His grip on Ezekiel's shoulders loosened and his gaze turned questioning, hopeful. "Well?"

Ezekiel answered him in the language they were both more comfortable with. He leaned in and kissed Lucifer, losing himself in the familiar heat of his lover's mouth. No, he couldn't leave this, not now, he knew. This was home. This was peace. This was love.

"Come back with me, Ezekiel. Stay with me. I need you. It won't be like before," the devil promised, his words flowing easily now that the worst barrier had been broken.

"What will it be like?"

"Our own private Heaven...in the middle of Hell, if that's possible."

"I guess we'll find out if it is," Zeke answered.

"Yes. I guess we will."

Ezekiel took what he figured would be his last look around this world. Dark, cold, empty...no, he wouldn't be sorry to let it go. Resolved to his fate, he reached into his coat pocket, where his gun rested. It still felt slightly warm from the recent firing, and if his memory served him right there were still two bullets in it. He pulled it out and tried to give the weapon to Lucifer. The devil covered Zeke's hand with his own but shook his head and did not take the weapon. "I can guide your hand, but I can't pull the trigger. You have to do it yourself."

They stood in silence for a long moment. "It's gonna hurt, isn't it?" Ezekiel sighed.

"Like Hell. But I'll be with you...I'll always be with you, Ezekiel."

Zeke saw something, then, in the devil's eyes. Something he'd never seen before.

True joy.

It was a beautiful sight.

Ezekiel turned the gun toward his own eyes; Lucifer held it steady and nodded. Two quick shots and it would be over.

 _God be with you, Rosalyn,_ Zeke prayed silently.

He pulled the trigger.


End file.
